5/02/2011 @ 11:30AM31,194 views

Killing Bin Laden: Tactical Success, Strategic Failure

Washington’s ten-year quest to neutralize Osama bin Laden has finally born fruit. Even before the infamous author of the 9-11 attacks was cornered and killed this weekend, his terrorist organization had been gradually dismembered by Predator strikes and special-forces operations. The search for bin Laden is a case study in perseverance, one that demanded extraordinary sacrifice from many thousands of warfighters and intelligence operatives, and cost many billions of dollars.

But precisely for that reason, it is hard to take comfort from news that Osama bin Laden is dead. It has taken the world’s greatest military power a decade to track down the tallest man in Afghanistan (and Pakistan), sending an implicit message to like-minded zealots that terrorism is a remarkably effective tool for changing the world. The on-going impact of Al Qaeda’s thinly resourced foot-soldiers on global security has to be a worrisome sign in a world where new technology is empowering extremists of every stripe.

Within minutes after it was disclosed that bin Laden had been taken down in an affluent neighborhood 35 miles from Pakistan’s capital, pundits were already asking the question of how much the Pakistani intelligence service knew about his whereabouts, and for how long. We’ll probably never know the answer to that question, but the fact that recriminations between partners in the counter-terror campaign are likely to persist long after bin Laden is gone underscores the effectiveness of ruthless, elusive actors in undermining democratic governments. It turns out that democracies just aren’t very good at dealing with enemies who refuse to play by the rules.

But the damage that bin Laden’s tactics have done to America’s ties with other governments pales in comparison with what we have allowed him to do to our own economy and society. The years before 9-11 now look like a golden age of American affluence and influence that collapsed with startling rapidity in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. We cannot blame Al Qaeda for the dot.com bust, the sub-prime meltdown, and the fact that America’s share of global economic output has fallen from a third to a quarter of the total in only ten years, but there is good reason to believe that the distraction of policymakers by overseas threats had something to do with Washington’s economic mis-steps in the first decade after what had come to be called the American Century. And we most definitely can blame Al Qaeda for a sizable chunk of the federal government’s debt, since the war in Afghanistan was a direct response to 9-11 and the war in Iraq would have been politically unsalable without it.

Beyond that, the fear that has informed America’s domestic security arrangements and self-image since 9-11 reflects just how hard it is to maintain an open society when a handful of committed crazies are determined to force change. Every month brings us new images of how the threat of extremist violence has torn our social fabric, from the photos of tortured detainees at Abu Graib prison to the viral video of a small child being frisked as she boarded a recent airline flight. In general, we have managed to maintain our humanity and respond to provocations both at home and abroad in a measured, proportional way, but there is little doubt the terrorists have changed how we think and how we behave.

So while I share the widespread admiration for the skill and precision with which Navy Seals managed to dispatch the world’s most notorious terrorist, I’m also dismayed by how long it took to get him and disturbed by the message that the resilience of his organization sends to the rest of the world. We have defeated a terrorist in the tactical sense but failed in the strategic sense by allowing him to demonstrate the limits of American power. When future historians recount what happened to America in the first decade of the new millennium, they will point to the attacks Osama bin Laden mounted on 9-11 as a turning point in global history, and see in Washington’s response a partial explanation for the nation’s subsequent decline.

Loren Thompson is Chief Operating Officer of the non-profit Lexington Institute and Chief Executive Officer of the private consultancy Source Associates. The Lexington Institute receives money from many of the nation’s leading defense contractors, and Source Associates provides technical services to companies in the industry.

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How to Counter extremism. USA should help in solving the problem of Kashmir and Palestine to divert Muslims youth towards constructive activities and not to divert and throw them towards war and conflicts by keeping these small lands occupied by India and Isreal, Otherwise there will be no shortage of freedom fighters and warriors sacrificing their lives. Pros and Cons of India-USA Relationship. Increasing military and strategic relations between India and USA will have adverse Effects on image of USA in Pakistan,Afghanistan and Kashmir. USA is already suffering from Bad image problem, due to negative acts and deeds of Israel in Muslims world which is also a main root cause of extremism among muslims.

Now by increasing military relations with India, which is well known for 1) victimization of its huge muslim minority

2)Victimization of People of Kashmir(Only Majority Muslim state in India) and

3)Having enemity with its neighbouring Muslim state of Pakistan.

4)Always trying to create bad relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan. All above facts are recognized and well known facts.By having close raltions with Israel and India, it is certain that Muslims of worlds specially people of Afghanistan,Pakistan and Kashmir will see such relation ship with suspicion.

It is requested from USA government not to damage the image of the great nation of USA in the eyes of Muslim world.

I agree with this article. We have mis-spent too much time and resources looking for Bin Laden. We should have paid the Israeli Mossad to find him and take him out. Our interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq have not made the kind of significant, long-term changes which were anticipated by the Bush Administration. As soon as we pull out our armed forces, chaos and confusion will take over as will civil war. It will have been a wasted decade of futility.

Ah, the Israeli Mossad, far more to be feared than the US! NOT, I REPEAT NOT, because our special forces are any less capable, talented, committed or equipped, but due to our politically correct lefties and far too many RINOS and even a few misguided righties! We have the power, yet we shackle it. That disturbing trend began back in Nam days!

There are a lot of things that we are asked (to put it in Hillary Clinton’s words) to process with a willing suspension of disbelief. Interesting that the Pakistani military complex was but a thousand yards away, yet no one knew anything about Osama’s whereabouts. Lot’s of other litle nuggets as well… Hard to believe. Hard to accept. For at least some of us…

While we are grid locked in politically correct and deer in the headlights apologetic mode, we will continue to have trouble prosecuting terrorists and they know it! (go here for an excellent treatise on the concept of PC! http://www.ourcivilisation.com/pc.htm) So how do we pursue those that wish to do us harm and threaten our very way of life? By manacling ourselves in the process? I think that the Obama regime has slowly learned this harsh lesson.

The US Constitution is NOT a suicide pact and is NOT reserved for those that would do us harm, no matter how anal those of you who think the opposite want to be. That sort of mamby pamby misinterpreted thinking gets us in trouble in a lot more venues and situations as well! The sooner you weenies get this through your far left, schitte for brains, skulls, the better the world will be!

First of all, the world’s most powerful country, the USA failed to prevent 9/11. Intelligence failure.

Secondly, it took the US ten long years to terminate the chief perpetrator of 9/11, Osama bin Laden! Intelligence failure, again. America has the world’s greatest organization called the CIA besides having the world’s greatest military as well. It is still a ‘mystery’ why it took 10 years to kill an elusive terrorist like Laden. The army can’t just go after him and kill him, especially in a terrain as ‘strange’ as Afghanistan’s or Pakistan’s. The U.S. Army is the most well equipped and skilled. The Navy Seals are amazingly skilled. In a situation like this, the army needs intelligence inputs. What will the CIA say? Did they fall asleep after the collapse of the Soviet Union only to be woken up by 9/11? If failure is not identified or admitted, correction wouldn’t be possible. Did they, prior to 9/11, think ‘Laden wasn’t apt to be an enemy of the Superpower’? The American military and the government underestimated the enemy like they did in the Pearl Harbor incident. Did they forget the maxim ‘Never underestimate your enemy’?

Another question arises, is the world’s most high-tech military is ill-prepared to fight against a very ‘low-tech’ side?! Does high technology not work in a primitive set-up? An awkward situation. Maybe we will never know.

Killing of Laden was of course inevitable. It was indeed a tactical success and a strategic failure. And considering the huge cost America had to bear including the damages inflicted on the U.S. economy during the entire Osama bin Laden episode, the failures outweigh the successes.

Saberman so correctly recognises the need to improve our abilities to a) conduct counter-insurgency b) utilize intelligence even in non-traditional situations such as the OBL assassination demonstrates and c) started to come to the realization that we need to look at more than just military power to defend our nation—we need to embrace and understanding of the economic, social, political, cultural, religious and other aspects of our situations.

However, would anyone please identify why it took the US 10 years to take OBL out? Was this due to conflicting strategies of the two different administrations and if so, what went wrong and what lessons are there to learn with imminent US elections and 50% probability of a new administration?